You can see some of our current case studies from each block of sessions and a toolkit on running similar sessions here

We have shared our learning from this programme internationally, including at the ECSITE 2022 conference and as a blog with the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement on co-production, and happy to share our resources and learning.

Engineers at Gibson Robotics wrote a blog of their experience here and our community partner wrote a blog on this here too.

past projects

New Scots Connect: Ingenious 

Through our long-term relationship with New Scots and MCFB, specific needs were identified for the youth group wanting to explore STEM and support their confidence and wellbeing. It was also identified that many of the New Scots men in the community had technical backgrounds and were keen to meet peers to share their own experiences, understand more about what was happening in Scotland around engineering and related fields and develop their language and wider employability skills. 

We developed a 2-year programme together with MCFB’s Safe Haven youth group and Syrian men’s group to explore these needs and connect them with local engineers funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

For the youth group, this led to a long-term programme exploring engineering through youth-led play with engineers and local organisations including the Royal Observatory. For the men’s group, we explored making and “tinkering” together - from 3D printing to making drones - collaborating with Edinburgh Hacklab members, Napier University and other individual local engineers.

New Scots Connect Camp

Started initially as part of the Ingenious project with the youth group, we established a 3-year partnership with Dynamic Earth co-delivering an annual 3-day summer club exploring various STEM topics with engineers and STEM Ambassadors. These clubs also included a family celebration event where young people shared their learning with the rest of their families on the final day of the camp.

Curiosity in Action

Building on our relationship, the MCFB youth group became involved in our Curiosity In Action programme shifting the focus on how the youth workers themselves can be more confidently involved in leading STEM activities themselves in partnership with “scientists-in-residences” as a tool to support youthwork outcomes like confidence and wellbeing. They were matched up with two scientists-in-residence who were based at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Alison Young and Clara Pennock, as part of a wider collaborative action research process with four other youthworkers to build the evidence-base of how STEM can be used as a tool to support youth work outcomes. This programme is funded by STFC.

The programme began in 2017 hosting  a series of “culture jam” workshops with partners including The Welcoming involving sharing culture - from music, dance, language and science  -  leading to a large New Scots Ceilidh as part of British Science Week. 

Following on from the workshops and the ceilidh, a steering group involving both New Scots themselves and local organisations and volunteers was established to coordinate cultural events over the year with voluntary support from Science Ceilidh. This involved a welcoming “Fun Palaces” event for other asylum seekers and involvement through many Eid celebrations.

In September 2018, we ran a sell-out New Scots Ceilidh in partnership with the Welcoming as part of the EU Researchers Night - Explorathon. Participants for the ceilidh ranged from self-identified refugees, migrants, New Scots, Europeans, Scots and Brits as well as those from other parts of the world. We shared research around singing and wellbeing, bilingualism and physics amongst the ceilidh dances. 

We have also run small activities linking creativity with researchers as part of the Welcoming’s Creative Space including looking at Scottish music, the link between bilingualism and healthy ageing beforehand.

A longer-term partnership and programme then developed with Multi-Cultural Family Base in Edinburgh with funding from the Royal Academy of Engineering. This programme ran from 2021-2022 and involved connecting a youth and a men's refugee group with local engineers. This work led to a 3-year partnership with Dynamic Earth, the youth group at MCFB, volunteer engineers and Science Ceilidh to run annual 3-day summer clubs for the young people. 

Our partnership with the youth group developed further through our Curiosity in Action programme with them being one of five groups who were partnered with a scientist-in-residence to explore how STEM can support social outcomes.

We continue to work with New Scots over time based on developing needs and currently working on a project looking at digital skills with people seeking aslyum.